As Barbie and Oppenheimer go head to head (and hat to hat) in cinemas on ‘Barbenheimer Day’, our film critic BRIAN VINER scores them over ten rounds in… Barbie versus the Big Bang
Happy Barbenheimer Day! That’s what the wags on social media are calling it, as Greta Gerwig’s fluffy satire Barbie faces off at the global box office against Christopher Nolan’s intense drama Oppenheimer, about the scientist who helped to create the atomic bomb.
It’s by no means the first time that two huge movies have been released on the same day. Indeed, some other head-to-heads have been as culturally intriguing as this one. In November 1995, for example, Martin Scorsese’s epic crime movie Casino opened against the inaugural Pixar animation Toy Story.
But nobody tried to fuse those two titles, and besides, their contrasts weren’t as irresistible as those between Barbie and Oppenheimer: a pair of single-word names, one synonymous with little girls playing innocently with their dolls, the other with an existential threat to humankind.
I reviewed Barbie (12A, ****) in Wednesday’s paper and Oppenheimer (15, *****) yesterday. But beyond those star ratings I’m celebrating Barbenheimer Day by matching up the two films over ten rounds and awarding them points out of 50, to help you decide which blockbuster is the winner for you …
Greta Gerwig’s satire Barbie
Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer
BEST STORY
BARBIE
In the marshmallow-pink utopia that is Barbie Land, Margot Robbie plays Stereotypical Barbie, who one day starts malfunctioning and is despatched to the human world to find out why. She is accompanied on this adventure by Ken (Ryan Gosling), who like his fellow Ken dolls is completely in thrall to the many Barbies … until he finds that in reality it’s the male of the species who holds all the cards. Barbie, too, must deal with this startling discovery, and at the same time find her own real self.
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OPPENHEIMER
A biopic about J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the brilliant theoretical physicist who, with the Second World War raging, is appointed head of the Los Alamos laboratory in New Mexico. There, his leadership proves vital in the development of the world’s first nuclear weapons. But the film follows him from his student days in the 1930s to the security hearing in 1954, at which his pre-war Communist sympathies are scrutinised.
Rating:
MOST COMPELLING SCENE
BARBIE
When Barbie and Ken first arrive in Los Angeles, glowing in their beachwear, radiant with naivety, they are shocked by all the negative comments they attract. It’s wholly predictable but no less funny for it.
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OPPENHEIMER
The moment at Los Alamos in July 1945 when a nuclear device is detonated for the first time, an operation codenamed Trinity, is one of the most tense and extraordinary spectacles I’ve ever witnessed on the silver screen. The masterly cinematography and sound design genuinely took my breath away.
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SMARTEST LINE
BARBIE
The script, by Gerwig and her partner Noah Baumbach, has many great lines. But the self-awareness of the whole exercise is deliciously lampooned when Barbie says she looks ugly and narrator Helen Mirren archly notes that, for the line to have any meaning, the filmmakers shouldn’t have cast Robbie.
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OPPENHEIMER
At its best, Nolan’s script is properly thought-provoking. ‘We’ve got one hope — anti-Semitism,’ says Oppenheimer. He is Jewish himself, but he is referring to the German scientists who might yet outsmart the Americans in the nuclear race. Many are Jews but Hitler is so blinded by hatred that he wants them eradicated.
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STARRIER CAST
BARBIE
Led by two bona fide movie stars in Robbie and Gosling, Barbie’s supporting cast also takes some beating. It includes Will Ferrell, Kate McKinnon, Emma Mackey, Dua Lipa, John Cena and Michael Cera.
Rating:
OPPENHEIMER
Cillian Murphy was a bold choice for the lead; despite the success of Peaky Blinders he’s by no means a household name in America. But otherwise the cast is full of stars, such as Matt Damon, Emily Blunt, Robert Downey Jnr, Gary Oldman, Kenneth Branagh, Florence Pugh and Rami Malek.
Rating:
SEXIEST MOMENT
BARBIE
Maybe this is just me, but … it’s when Barbie removes her slender foot from her high-heeled shoe and it stays in exactly the same arched position, a trick achieved by Robbie with no recourse to doubles or special effects.
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OPPENHEIMER
There’s a decidedly steamy scene between Oppenheimer and his mistress Jean Tatlock (Pugh), but it’s sexier when the two of them lounge, stark naked, in earnest post-coital conversation.
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EASIEST ON THE BLADDER
BARBIE
This is no contest. Barbie weighs in at an hour and 54 minutes, which these days feels relatively modest.
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OPPENHEIMER
It’s three hours long. Which actually isn’t as challenging as it might be, because there’s so much story to tell. But even so … take sandwiches.
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STAR OF THE SHOW
BARBIE
The mighty irony, in a tale about the empowerment of women, is that it’s a fella who steals the movie. Gosling is hilarious as Ken.
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OPPENHEIMER
He might not be an A-list movie star, yet, but Murphy couldn’t be a better choice for the title role and rises magnificently to the occasion. An Oscar-worthy performance.
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BRITANNIA RULES
BARBIE
There’s some solid British content, with Dame Helen Mirren as the narrator, Kingsley Ben-Adir as one of the Kens, Emma Mackey as one of the Barbies, and an amusing role as a humble Mattel employee for Connor Swindells, the talented young English actor who was so wonderful as the lead in the BBC drama SAS: Rogue Heroes. Look out, too, for Emerald Fennell, who played Camilla Parker-Bowles in The Crown.
Rating:
OPPENHEIMER
As Harry S. Truman, Gary Oldman continues the strange trend of British actors being cast as U.S. Presidents in Hollywood movies. I can’t count Murphy, as an Irishman, but with Blunt and Pugh as the main female characters, not to mention Branagh, and of course Nolan at the helm as writer-director, this edges it.
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SUPERIOR LOOKALIKE
BARBIE
Barbie is flawlessly beautiful and so is Robbie.
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OPPENHEIMER
Murphy is a fair bit shorter than Oppenheimer was, but he lost lots of weight to replicate the scientist’s gaunt, hollow-cheeked look.
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MOST POWERFUL MESSAGE
BARBIE
That women can overcome the so-called patriarchy and fulfil their potential in the real world, not just in Barbie Land.
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OPPENHEIMER
That huge leaps forward in science don’t necessarily equate to huge leaps forward for humanity.
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